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Aluminium cans

From bauxite to beverage cans

Making responsible materials traceable and transparent


Last updated: 7 November 2024

Aluminium undergoes a huge transformation from a red bauxite rock to the metal found everywhere in life.

It’s mined, refined and smelted. It travels on trucks and ships – sometimes thousands of kilometres. And finally, it’s shaped into everything from cans to cars. So, through all of that, how can you be confident the product you’ve just bought was made responsibly?

Understanding – and being able to trace – the full process is important as more and more consumers seek out products made sustainably. In fact, suggests ethical and sustainability issues are a key driver for almost a third of consumers.

People want to know more about the products they buy, where they come from and how they were made. This is true for food, clothes – and our products are no exception.

To help our customers – and the consumers who buy their products – make informed decisions, we need to provide increased transparency and traceability across our entire supply chain.

So we created – a digital platform that provides traceable, transparent information about our products. START began with aluminium and is now expanding to cover more materials, including copper cathode and metal powders.

How START works

START™ is a supply chain traceability, transparency and assurance digital initiative, helping our customers and end users make better material choices with ease.

As part of our offering, we provide a START™ label to our customers, similar to a nutrition label, that captures the sustainability and provenance credentials of our materials across up to 14 ESG metrics, providing transparency on where and how materials were made.

Aluminium stack

Tracking the materials the world needs from START to finish

Like a “nutrition label”, key information is provided across 14 criteria from mine to market:

More

Global warming potential, water management, energy source, air emissions, biodiversity, recycled content, land management, waste management, safety performance, contribution to communities, supplier due diligence, ethics and compliance training, whistleblowing programs and diversity.

You can see where your materials come from, how they were made, and the environmental, social and governance standards followed during their production.

Rigorously and independently verified data

We collect the information used in START for our annual sustainability reporting.

Each of our sites provides data that is verified by our subject matter experts, and then reviewed by Health, Safety, Environment & Security and Communities & Social Performance teams as a second line of assurance. Our Board’s Sustainability Committee then reviews and signs it off, before an external auditor assures the greenhouse gas emissions information. 

START builds on our existing assurance systems, like ASI and Copper Mark.

With increased scrutiny on the origin of materials and on climate change, we believe START will help customers respond to growing consumer expectations. Our goal is to demonstrate to customers and consumers that our responsibly produced and traceable products are the right materials for their needs.

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